Originally posted on 09/22/2012:

Countries do some things well and some things poorly. France's health care system is better than the US when taking cost into account (they spend about half of what the US does). If the US had a French system, there would be one trillion a year extra for people to have... that trillion dollars of waste just basically lines the pockets of health care companies and people that work in the medical industry.

The US healthcare system is a major reason the middle class is getting their ass kicked in the US. Wages are stagnant largely because employers have to pay higher insurance premiums (hence any wage increases just go towards insurance). Furthermore, average Joes are often stuck at their jobs and can't quit/find a better one since they'll lose their insurance. It's just a sad state of affairs, but the $1 trillion of waste (that's the difference between having 10% of your GDP go to healthcare like France versus 18% like the US- 8% of US GDP is about $1 trillion) is seen. Bottom line: $1 trillion divided by 300 million people is roughly $3k per every person and about $10k per family. That's what the US pays for it's dipshit healthcare system.

However, there's plenty of things France does that are idiotic. In general, most of their other welfare programs go a bit far and a person can be unemployed for two years and get payments from the government (3 years for over 50). They're also similar to Greece in the sense they just have too many government employees and tend to overpay them.

Instead of villifying other countries, it's best to look at things with a cool head and see what things and what does not.